Chiming in on the Crypto Craze – Podcast Episode 286

On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan and Matt take on crypto. It’s the latest investment obsession with vocal fans … and detractors. On this show Ryan and Matt offer advice to dentists on what they believe should be your crypto strategy. Wondering about investing in Bitcoin or the “Doge” (or just wondering what the fuss is all about), this is the episode you’ve been waiting for.

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show. This one’s a good one. First of all, we are sponsored by Dentist Advisors, a no-commission fiduciary comprehensive financial advisor just for dentists all over the country. Check us out at dentistadvisors.com.

Ryan Isaac:
Today, we’re getting controversial, folks. We’re talking about Bitcoin, we’re talking about crypto, we’re talking about the Doge, and we hope it all goes to the moon, okay? But we’re going to talk about some of the questions we get from clients and people on social media and our Facebook group, asking what do advisors think about this? What are you telling clients to do? Should I own this? Should I not? Is it okay? What should I do? I hear about this from everybody. Everybody’s talking about this right now. And we haven’t done a Bitcoin episode since about 2016, I think. It’s kind of interesting to watch it fluctuate and all the changes along the way.

Ryan Isaac:
So today we’re going to get into that. We’re going to explain our philosophy, our investment philosophy, what we’re telling clients, how you should think about it. We also had a couple of really interesting polls we put on our Facebook group that we share the results of those polls and what it means and how people are thinking about it. What should you do about crypto and Bitcoin? What’s it all about? It’s what we’re going to talk about today, and if you have any questions for us directly, go to the website, dentistadvisors.com, click the Book Free Consultation button, and schedule a chat with one of our dental-specific, very friendly advisers today, or post a question in Facebook group. It’s the Dentist Advisors discussion group on Facebook and post a question. We’ll post an answer.

Ryan Isaac:
But anyway, hopefully the show sheds a little light on the role of cryptocurrency in your portfolio as we see it and hopefully answer some questions. If it stirs up controversy, that’s great. Let’s have a chat about it. Go hit us up in the comments in the Facebook group. Just be nice, all right? Let’s be cool, let’s be friends. And speaking of friends, thanks for being here, friends. We really appreciate you joining us and listening to this episode and being here with us on the Dentist Money Show. Thanks for all the support. Enjoy the show, guys.

Announcer:
Consultant an advisor or conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors, a registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions and avoid the bad ones along the way. I am Ryan Isaac, and I’m here with the Hollywood mountain, Matt Mulcock. What’s up, Matt? How are you doing?

Matt Mulcock:
Yo, Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Feeling it? Feeling it today?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m feeling good. I got a new baby.

Ryan Isaac:
You do.

Matt Mulcock:
Feeling good.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. Are you excited to maybe make some people mad today?

Matt Mulcock:
That is my life every day as a financial advisor and someone that dabbles in the content game. I think you’ve got to be willing to piss people off by having an opinion.

Ryan Isaac:
If you have an opinion, you’re going to make someone mad. The only way to make people happy is to have an opinion. So it’s just the way it goes.

Matt Mulcock:
But we share it respectfully and from a good place.

Ryan Isaac:
If we ever sound disrespectful, I will honestly say that maybe not me, but the humans I work with at Dentist Advisers are not disrespectful people and so it’s not intentional.

Matt Mulcock:
No.

Ryan Isaac:
If it ever comes across that way. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m a punk, but I don’t mean it either, I don’t think. I want like love and happiness and good vibes with everybody. Find your own path, dude. Go your own way. We have financial opinions, but if you don’t like them, that’s fine.

Matt Mulcock:
That’s okay.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s a lot of ways to make money and build wealth and do your thing, and you can take lots of risks or little bits of risk. You can be conservative or aggressive [crosstalk 00:03:25]

Matt Mulcock:
Hey, guess what? That is the foundation of the financial markets is diverse opinion, the diversity of opinion. That’s what makes it tick.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s what gives pricing a mechanism, diversity of opinion. [crosstalk 00:03:36]

Matt Mulcock:
I’m really actually glad when people don’t agree with me, because I’m like, “This is the world working as it should.”

Ryan Isaac:
As it should. Except just let’s still be friends after we have a diverse opinion.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, of course. Yeah. Let’s be friends, and then we can disagree, and it’s totally cool.

Ryan Isaac:
So what are we talking about? Why are we all goosed up about this one already? Like that’s a phrase, goosed up. It’s totally not.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. We’re totally goosed up. That’s what my dad used to say when we were putting sunscreen on back in the day. “Let me goose you up.”

Ryan Isaac:
Really?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, totally. My dad’s a total nerd. I love him to death.

Ryan Isaac:
What does he call you when you’re being cheap too? What does he call it?

Matt Mulcock:
A piker.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re a piker.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s goose up that piker, boy.

Matt Mulcock:
My dad is a nerd. The apple does not fall far from the tree here.

Ryan Isaac:
Good. Shout out to parents. They all just tried their best. We’re all just trying our best.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. Why are we goosed up? We’re goosed up because we’re talking Bitcoin today.

Matt Mulcock:
Bitcoin?

Ryan Isaac:
But you already knew that from the title. You knew that from the title from the intro.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. You clicked on this. In fact, we’re going to have the most listeners ever. I’m calling it right now. Not as a betting man, but I’m going to bet on this one. Just off the title alone, we’re going to have the most listeners ever.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m with you. Depending on how we titled the Reese Harper interview, people loved the Reese.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, that’s true.

Ryan Isaac:
And depending on how we titled Reese Harper, he hasn’t been on a while, that might be a high download, but I’m going to go with you. I think it’s a safe bet. Bitcoin episode to the moon. Downloads to the moon. That’s what we’re talking about. Okay. All right. Well, the questions roll in. If this was a YouTube cool channel, we would just post all these little screenshots of questions that come in from emails and texts and comments.

Matt Mulcock:
We’ve got to start doing that, by the way. We’ve got to get on YouTube.

Ryan Isaac:
Some YouTube, we could do some YouTube, like the kids do.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. It’s all they use.

Ryan Isaac:
Open presents and make money.

Matt Mulcock:
Is that how it works?

Ryan Isaac:
You just open toys, and then you …

Matt Mulcock:
Pretty much. You’ve got to be eight years old and open toys and make millions of dollars on YouTube.

Ryan Isaac:
I like that life. Bitcoin, what are the questions that roll in? Matt, I’ll throw out a few. You can share some. A common one is should I own it?

Matt Mulcock:
What do you think about it?

Ryan Isaac:
What do you think about it? What does a financial advisor think about it? What are you telling clients? It’s funny, because it’s been around for a long time. Crypto’s not brand new by any means.

Matt Mulcock:
2010 was when Bitcoin came out.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I think so. It’s been around for a little while, but it’s funny, when things hit kind of a critical peak of interest, and people, they’re just like, “What are you telling everyone?” That’s a logical question. What else are you getting? What are you hearing from people about the coin, the BTC?

Matt Mulcock:
Did you already throw out should I invest in it? Was that your first question?

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know. Maybe. Should I invest in Bitcoin?

Matt Mulcock:
Should I invest in Bitcoin? I get that a little bit, here and there. I think pretty much they usually fall in one of those categories of “Should I invest in it? What do you think about it? Are other people investing in it?” There’s one. That’s pretty much what I’m getting, some version of those questions.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m going to throw out some poll results on Facebook.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, yeah. You did a poll on this recently.

Ryan Isaac:
And it’s cool how this ended. But this is a little plug too for the Facebook group, Dentist Advisers discussion group on Facebook, and it’s really helpful when people interact with these things. I did two polls on Bitcoin over the last couple of weeks. One of them was, “Do you own crypto? Yes or no?” That’s it, all it was, and it was exactly split down the middle, 50/50, to the number 50/50. Well, someone said, longtime friend, let’s say longtime friend was asking this question after we had this poll, he was like, “What are people doing? What is your recommendation?” He even said, “I haven’t heard you tell me to buy it yet.” There’s kind of this thing, “Hey, you’re my financial advisor. I assume that when I need to buy, you’ll tell me to buy it.” And I think that’s a fair assumption.

Matt Mulcock:
Sure.

Ryan Isaac:
There was that. And then I did another poll after that one. The other poll was, let me find it here, it was for those of you who don’t own crypto. So if you do not own any crypto, and crypto, by the way, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, this is not going to be the show where we define all these things in the history of it, and this is definitely not the show …

Matt Mulcock:
Technical details on it.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. It’s just there’s so many smarter people who are in love with this stuff who have like hours and hours of content. You can go check it out. It’s not hard to find anymore. But the poll was if you do not own any crypto, why not? The most popular answer by far was, “I don’t know enough about it.” So that was number one. That was 90% of the votes. Second one was, “I don’t trust it.”

Matt Mulcock:
Fair, very fair.

Ryan Isaac:
And there was, “I don’t care about it.” And then there was, “Explain below.” The explanations from people were actually kind of interesting. One person said, “I have a friend who invested, and they got a 6,000% return in a matter of a week or so, and it sounds too good to be true. So pass.” Another guy said, “Been there, done that, went deep into the rabbit hole. Wasn’t worth the stress. I’m a dentist. I earn enough to win the end game with a conservative investment strategy. No need to gamble.”

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, I love that answer.

Ryan Isaac:
Someone said, “I’m not interested unless it’s tried, tested, and proven. I’d rather invest more in my dental practice and take the risk there than take the time to read and learn and get involved with crypto.” Some people are talking about how they put, it was kind of funny, it was if you don’t own crypto, and then people in the comments were like, “I own crypto.”

Matt Mulcock:
I’m going to answer this and tell you, “Oh, actually I do own it.”

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. I was going to make a CrossFit vegan joke, but we’ll skip it. But they were saying they own it in really small percentages. Another person compared it to tulip mania, which was an insane investment bubble from a couple hundred years ago.

Matt Mulcock:
The 17th century.

Ryan Isaac:
Yep. Other people were echoing the comments about holding it in a very small percentage. Another guy said, “I have a friend who got this crazy return on Dogecoin, on the Doge, and [crosstalk 00:09:42].

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, Doge. Going to the moon, Doge.

Ryan Isaac:
He said he thinks his friend is lying to him. You know what? It’s highly possible he’s not lying, but he’s misinterpreting the return data. That happens all the time. Anyway, this was interesting to me. 50/50 in our group who answered yes to no own crypto, and the majority of people who don’t own it said they just don’t know enough about it to own it yet.

Ryan Isaac:
So we’re going to tackle that today. I’m going to throw out some disclaimers, Matt. Pile some on if you want to make, this is the time for disclaimers. This is the cover-your-butt section before we make anyone mad, right? Disclaimer number one, we’re not doing the history of Bitcoin or what it is. We’re not talking about blockchain technology and what it means and the implications. Disclaimer number two, this is not the future of Bitcoin speculation hour. I don’t personally care enough to spend … It’s fascinating for some people, and it’s a cool thing, but it doesn’t do it for me. So this is not going to be like the … This is our show, so we’re going to do what we want.

Matt Mulcock:
So deal with it.

Ryan Isaac:
There’s just smarter people who care about it a lot, I don’t want to say care about it, maybe you care about it. Some of our advisors like it more than others do. We’re a diverse group here. Some people in our company own it as their own personal investments. I personally do not. Do you own any Bitcoin, Matt?

Matt Mulcock:
I do not.

Ryan Isaac:
You don’t currently?

Matt Mulcock:
Nope.

Ryan Isaac:
Will you ever, do you think?

Matt Mulcock:
I’m not opposed to it.

Ryan Isaac:
You could see it happening?

Matt Mulcock:
I could see it happening at some point, and we’ll get into it today about how I view it right now. I don’t know if it’ll ever change in how I view it or where I would dabble in it. Where I’m at in my life, I just don’t see it having a place currently.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Like in meaningful enough. I think that’s true, how I view as well as what causes me not to do it. So anyway, this is not a podcast on the future of the technology in Bitcoin and how it’s going to change the world and take over and whatever. That’s just not where we’re going today. Today, we just want to give context, and we’re only speaking for ourselves. What does a financial advisor to dentists think about owning Bitcoin in portfolio? Should you, shouldn’t you? What are the implications of it? If you’re going to do it, how do you do it? What do we think about it personally? But this is just a couple of people.

Matt Mulcock:
Last caveat I’d throw is we’re not disparaging anyone that has a different view of this, that has this. Bitcoin is like a few things in America going on. It’s very polarizing. Literally, it’s become almost religious in a sense of either anti or pro the topic, so it’s very rare that I find anybody, and maybe this is a little bit of self-selection bias of the people that I’m around and the Twitter that I’m on as far as who I follow, it doesn’t ever seem to be someone that’s very neutral on Bitcoin. It’s either you are [crosstalk 00:12:34].

Ryan Isaac:
It’s not a neutral topic.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
But I was going to say it’s not neutral, like pineapple on pizza, but if you say that, there’s a fight too.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, we’ll fight over that all day.

Ryan Isaac:
What’s neutral, like Sriracha sauce?

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, it’s so good.

Ryan Isaac:
I love Sriracha.

Matt Mulcock:
And Sriracha’s amazing.

Ryan Isaac:
Every morning I have Sriracha.

Matt Mulcock:
I guess that’s true. Maybe America just isn’t neutral anymore. No one can just have a conversation.

Ryan Isaac:
Maybe we’ve passed the point of middle ground in our society.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, we may have.

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know.

Matt Mulcock:
Well, we’re going to try to have a conversation about Bitcoin today that is very neutral and middle ground, if possible.

Ryan Isaac:
Sure to be friendly. All right. So I’ll just start with what do I think about so much as how they should treat it in a portfolio right now. And my simple answer to that, and I’ve been telling this to people for a long time, and anyone who’s my client or has talked to me, this won’t be a surprise, but I still view cryptocurrency right now as a speculation and not in the way that it’s wild. No, not in the way that there’s no way it’s going to be there in the future. Not a speculation like that, because there’s other speculations you can bet on that really possibly, probably won’t be there in the future. It would not surprise me if Bitcoin was a permanent staple in our asset class.

Matt Mulcock:
In some way.

Ryan Isaac:
Again, it’s not brand new, but we could be seeing the birth of a brand new asset class that in the future will have its own characteristics, risk profile, return profile, stability, oversight, security, that kind of stuff. Right now, it does not. Right now, it feels to me like I would want someone to treat that like a speculation, which means no different than any other speculation, your brother-in-law’s startup, the side hustle you got going on.

Ryan Isaac:
First and foremost, dentists are our only clients, so I want dentists to protect the fact that they’ve spent a decade in school, they’re millions of dollars in debt, and they have the highest earning career statistically in the whole country. Even with mundane, average, boring investment returns, they have an almost guaranteed path to being wealthy, even at a younger age than normal retirement age, and have a good life along the way. The financial returns of a career of dentistry, they’re awesome, and you work in a career where banks will give you money, hand over fist, in a week, even if you’re brand new and you have no job history, at insane interest rates locked in for 15 years. You get unlimited funding.

Matt Mulcock:
Unreal.

Ryan Isaac:
You run businesses with up to 50% profitability. You have fair amounts of flexibility in your schedule. You’re the highest income-earning occupation statistically in the country. There’s a caveat to that, but you know what I’m talking about. Unless you screw something up, you should have a lot of money leftover when you’re done with the career of dentistry, and I want to protect that. I want to protect the fact that it feels like a guarantee to me, and I don’t want anything to screw that up or derail it. That’s where I’m coming from.

Ryan Isaac:
So I don’t have an agenda on what you should believe about some asset class. It’s an asset class. Why are we fighting about an asset class? Who freaking cares? If you’re a real estate guy, a DSO person, if you’re a gal with millions of dollars in a brokerage account and stocks and bonds, who cares, right? I just want to protect what you’ve built in the career of dentistry. So to me, I just would say treat crypto like any other speculation, speculative investment, and what do I mean by that? I mean it doesn’t have a track record. It’s pretty wildly unpredictable.

Matt Mulcock:
It is significantly wild.

Ryan Isaac:
Extremely wild and without a track record. There’s not a lot of oversight to it. It’s still relatively young. There’s still a lot of unknowns. There’s still ways that you can lose every penny of your investment. That still is possible. And so it feels like a speculation to me, so I would say keep it to a rational percentage of your liquid net worth, between 5% and 10% tops.

Matt Mulcock:
I was just going to ask. So what specific? Yeah, 5% or 10%.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s what I would say, 5% to 10% tops …

Matt Mulcock:
Of your investible assets.

Ryan Isaac:
… of your investible liquid assets. That’s how I would treat crypto. As if it’s the same thing, like you said, “Ryan, my brother-in-law is starting up a new software company, and I want to invest the money into it.” I would say, “Well, look, let’s go 5% to 10% tops, and let’s protect your guaranteed path and let you dabble where you want to dabble.” I’ll pause there, but that’s how I think about the place of crypto right now, and we can talk about maybe where it could end up, maybe even though I said that was a caveat we weren’t getting into, but maybe we can talk about that. What would you say about this? Matt, how should I think about this? [crosstalk 00:17:26]

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. I mean we’re 100% on the same page. It is definitely a speculation at this point. It is. There’s just no way around it. With the track record it has had, especially recently, you can see case in point what’s been going on with it over the last few weeks. It is 100-

Ryan Isaac:
Can I break in real fast there, really fast. When we say speculation, as I’m hearing you say that, I think someone might argue, because I’m trying to think the arguments in my head as we’re saying this, just so we can have it all out there. I think someone might push back and say, “It’s not a speculation because it’s going to be around for a long time.” I don’t think that’s what you’re arguing. I think you’re saying speculation from the point of view on how it behaves as an investment, its ups and downs, right? That’s how I when I say speculation …

Matt Mulcock:
The fact that you’re investing in a currency period is a speculation, and I would say the same thing if you were trading currencies that have been in existence longer than Bitcoin. Take anything in Europe, you’re trading the Euro, you’re trading the German Franc. Is that what it is in Germany? You’re trading any currency is speculating, right? You’re trading futures contracts. You are speculating. It’s the nature of the investment itself, versus I’m going to go invest in a company that has been around for 50 or 100 years that is kicking off earnings that gives back value to society. That’s a-

Ryan Isaac:
That’s an asset class that has track records, is regulated this way, has a history of doing this. Here are the extremes, here standard deviations, cycles. Something that’s kind of known.

Matt Mulcock:
Now, to argue to your point, to play the other side of this, someone saying, “Well, I’m going to buy Bitcoin or insert cryptocurrency, whatever you want here. There’s like 9,000 coins now, by the way, which is mind-blowing.

Ryan Isaac:
How many is you’re talking [crosstalk 00:19:17].

Matt Mulcock:
I think it’s over 9,000, but yeah, double-check that. But now someone might say, “Well, I’m going to buy Bitcoin or whatever other coin, and I’m going to hold it forever, so I’m investing in it.” Great. That’s great. If that’s your mindset, I’d rather have you do that than try to trade it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still look at it, right now, and I think all evidence points to right now, that it is definitely still a pure speculation right now. There’s just not enough of a track record there for it to be, this is a longterm investment.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m not saying Bitcoin’s not going to be there or crypto in general is not going to be there in 20 years from now. I actually think it will.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I do too.

Matt Mulcock:
The best example I heard of this, or the best kind of parallel that I heard someone make I thought was spot on, if you think back to the dot-com bubble, so early 2000s, end of the ’90s, early 2000s, the Internet was just becoming a thing. Along with that were all of these companies. There were hundreds of companies that the second they put .com, they weren’t even technology companies, companies literally were going out there and just putting .com on their name, and they immediately shut up, right? Within a year, they were out of business. But the Internet revolutionized the way the world works now in so many different ways. I kind of look at that now with crypto. So in 10 years from now, are there going to be 9,000 coins that make everyone a gajillionaire? No.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s 4,000 right now, by the way.

Matt Mulcock:
There’s what?

Ryan Isaac:
It says 4,000 right now.

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, 4,000.

Ryan Isaac:
For whatever that’s worth.

Matt Mulcock:
I’m obviously way off.

Ryan Isaac:
You haven’t slept much [crosstalk 00:20:51].

Matt Mulcock:
Exaggerating. I haven’t been sleeping a lot. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
But still …

Matt Mulcock:
But still, thousands, say thousands of coins, right?

Ryan Isaac:
A lot of coins, man.

Matt Mulcock:
So in 10 years from now, are there going to be thousands of coins, and they’re all going to be still here, or are half of those or more, maybe 95% of those, going to come out to be Ponzi schemes, but crypto itself or the technology behind it could very well, and most likely will, based on people that I’ve read and people that know what they’re talking about, it will most likely change the world. So those two things can exist at the same time.

Ryan Isaac:
I totally agree with that. Thinking about it, the other side of this too, not individual coins or anything, but as an asset class, it’s not a defined asset class right now. Now, look. Granted, call me out on this, I don’t spend hours a week, I’m not a big crypto buff, so I don’t spend hours a week listening to podcasts and reading blog posts about the future of this stuff, but I don’t think there’s consensus on what the definition of its asset class is yet. I’ve heard people say it’s a gold replacement. I’ve heard people say it’s a stock replacement. I’ve heard people say it’s uncorrelated-

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, a financial system replacement.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a complete financial system replacement. It is a new currency. There’s no consensus on what the asset class is, and that does matter. Where it eventually settles, if it settles as a currency, that has different characteristic trade-offs than if it settles as a gold replacement or a bond replacement, or that’s totally different if it settles as an asset class that rivals the behavior of stocks. Maybe it rivals the behavior of a private company. Who knows? That’s what I’m saying? Unless you have a view, I haven’t heard any consensus on how it would be defined yet as an asset class. There’s speculation of where it might end up, but I don’t know what it is now.

Matt Mulcock:
No, I totally agree. I think, and again, call me out on this, Ryan and I are not sitting here claiming were the crypto experts, by the way.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m not your crypto prophet.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re not your crypto go-to.

Ryan Isaac:
Or crypto guru.

Matt Mulcock:
But I have read enough and heard enough from people that do know what they’re talking about within this space. I think it’s pretty well accepted at this point that the whole thesis of Bitcoin taking over fiat currency entirely, I’m pretty sure that’s been all but debunked, as far as I know. Tell me that I’m wrong there, people. You yell at me on Facebook or whatever.

Ryan Isaac:
I wouldn’t know. Put it in the comments.

Matt Mulcock:
Put it in the comments, but I think that thesis has been kind of thrown out. The one I hear the most now is that it’s replaced, Bitcoin specifically, there’s other things obviously, thousands of coins, but Bitcoin specifically from what I’ve read and I think kind of the accepted use of it now, is digital gold, right?

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, yeah.

Matt Mulcock:
But again, I could be dead wrong on that, and five years from now, five days from now, that could be completely different. But one thing that you were saying, Ryan, that I think is also difficult here is there’s been no consensus or acceptance of what problem it’s even solving. Everyone knows that crypto and the technology behind it is incredibly, could possibly life-changing, but there’s still a lot of, “Well, what is it going to actually change specifically? What problems are there that it’s going to fix?” I know there’s going to be people out there yelling, “It’ll fix this, this and this.” I’m just saying there’s no consensus around that.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Not that it’s easy to grasp ahold of, and that’s, what’s interesting. If you look at it right now, and it’s a thing that over the last few years, it has literally had triple-digit increases and drops in tiny periods of time. I think anyone could agree that’s not normal, that’s not normal investment behavior, that’s not sustainable long-term investment behavior, which is again, why I define it as a speculation. I say just treat it like that in your portfolio until we have a little bit more understanding. Now the pushback to that is, “Well, that’s how you get rich off of something is you take a big swing at something that’s unknown.” Yes, that’s true. That’s one way to do things, and if that’s your deal, then cool. I hope you take a big swing and I hope you knock it out of the park.

Matt Mulcock:
But I’d say get rich quick and get poor quick are two sides of the same coin.

Ryan Isaac:
Now here’s the thing I’m going to say. As of right now, if you don’t hold it, I just don’t think it matters if you don’t hold it. If you don’t want it and you don’t trust it, if you’re in the poll, and you’re saying, “I don’t own it, and I don’t know enough about it, and I don’t trust it yet,” then you can move on and keep running a business at a 50% profit margin in the highest earning industry in the entire country and have a 25% savings rate, and you’ll be fine with that.

Matt Mulcock:
And you’re going to be wealthy, you’re going to be just fine.

Ryan Isaac:
If you want to participate with it, I would just say do it with an amount of money you could stand to see disappear overnight, because it could happen. Is it more likely that Bitcoin disappear, you lose all your money in crypto, than you would lose all of your money permanently in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds? I think that’s true.

Matt Mulcock:
100% yes. I can say that with full confidence you are more likely to lose all of your money in crypto versus a diversified portfolio in the financial markets.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. That’s why I still think of it like a speculation. It’s still wild. It’s a wild, untamed beast. And here’s the other side of this. Anytime there’s a speculation, the boring part, unless your 5% to 10% of your liquidity is hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars [crosstalk 00:26:22]

Matt Mulcock:
Which if it is, congratulations. You’ve already won the game.

Ryan Isaac:
You don’t even need it anyway.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, who cares?

Ryan Isaac:
But the paradox of it is that 5% to 10% of a portfolio, because it wouldn’t kill you, it also won’t make you rich if you do strike it big. 5% over your portfolio, if you do hit it, it’s like, “Eh.” Cool. It’s a little bump. Full transparency, I had a Dogecoin dream a month ago. I keep telling the team this.

Matt Mulcock:
And you still didn’t even invest in it.

Ryan Isaac:
I literally woke up, and it was like the morning dream. I must’ve been in REM in the morning or something, and I was dreaming about Dogecoin. In my dream, I was saying go buy Dogecoin when you wake up. It was the craziest thing.

Matt Mulcock:
And you didn’t do it.

Ryan Isaac:
And I woke up, and it was at two cents, and now it’s at 80 or something.

Matt Mulcock:
I think it dropped even, I think it’s down in the 30s or 20s or something.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh, really? I wouldn’t have held it. It hit 30 and then dipped, I think. I wouldn’t have held it to 70. I know for a fact I wouldn’t.

Matt Mulcock:
Great example, really quick, just on Dogecoin, as an example, and again, not every coin is created equal just like every company in the financial markets is not created equal. But if you take Dogecoin as an example, the inventor of that, the person who coded that, literally admitted it’s an open joke. This is a total joke, and people have been made millionaires off of this coin now, and it’s become a thing. I think at one point it had better returns than all of them, all of the coins out there, and it’s an open joke. Everyone knows it’s just a complete fabrication of reality and a total joke.

Ryan Isaac:
I love it. I think it’s hilarious. Things move like this too. I was going to bring up the point that, well, Dogecoin specifically, and if you’re listening to this and you’re so lost, “Are you trying to say dog or dodge?”

Matt Mulcock:
No, it’s Doge.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s an old joke about a dog face, and it’s spelled doge. It’s terrible, right?

Matt Mulcock:
To the moon, to the moon.

Ryan Isaac:
But the fact that right now, and you’re seeing this in stocks though too, this isn’t limited to crypto, but you’re seeing we’re in a weird, and it probably is a permanent piece of our investment society now, where technology has enabled every innate gambling personality in all of us, the human gambler in all of us, to just push buttons and gamble in legit systems, like a market, or new gambling systems that are newly legal for the first time. But that’s what’s crazy about this. There’s a thing that’s a joke, and Twitter made it go up really high.

Matt Mulcock:
And Elon. Thanks, Elon Musk.

Ryan Isaac:
And then there’s Bitcoin that’s not the joke coin, right? That’s not a joke coin, but there’s one person who made it skyrocket, and he’s nutty.

Matt Mulcock:
And then he single-handedly made it drop.

Ryan Isaac:
And then he made if drop. He was the guy that made it go up, because they were going to start adopting it, among other people, but he carries a lot of weight on social media. Then he’s like, “Never mind. We don’t like it.”

Matt Mulcock:
It drops 30% overnight.

Matt Mulcock:
Hey, Ryan, tell me what happens during our consultation?

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a great question, Matt. The first thing we’d like to do is just get to know more about you and your practice. What are your career goals? What are you doing in your practice, in your business? What kind of big decisions are you making in your personal financial life? Then we talk about how hiring a comprehensive fiduciary dental-specific financial advisor can help you make better financial decisions in your future, help you grow your net worth, get more organized, and get more peace of mind around your financial situation.

Matt Mulcock:
So you’re telling me it’s that easy and painless?

Ryan Isaac:
I am telling you it is that easy and totally painless. Exactly, Matt. Just go to dentistadvisors.com, click the book free consultation button. Do it right now. Talk to a friendly advisor today.

Ryan Isaac:
I want to just make sure that we’ve hit the way we’ve addressed … This is a big topic. People are talking about this a lot right now. They’re really looking to advisors and people to be like, “Should I own this?” I know why. Here’s the crazy thing is you can go out to a restaurant, I guess you can go to restaurants now in some places, and just sit and listen. And there are people who never in their entire lives, before or ever again, will probably have any interest in the slightest degree in anything financial ever. I have friends like this, friend’s spouses who are like this. One of the funny things, one of my favorite YouTube channels is a surf vlogger, and he just documents his surf life. His girlfriend on the show, who’s on there all the time, recently in the last month or so, had this episode where she was just all giddy about her new Coinbase account and her new crypto that she’s buying. I’m like, “I think we’ve hit the top here.”

Matt Mulcock:
Oh, yeah. We have hit the peak.

Ryan Isaac:
But people just want to know, this is my point, you hear it everywhere. Everyone’s talking about it, and you only hear the wild stuff about it. “Did you hear about this thing, and someone just made like a million dollars overnight?” The human response is, “Well, I don’t want to be the odd person out. I don’t want to be the dumb one here. Should I buy this?” So do you think we’ve addressed this? Is there anything else we need to cover? Things people are asking? What’s the Devil’s advocate here? What’s the pushback? What’s the pushback against what we’re saying? I always like that point of view. So what’s the pushback to saying it’s a speculation, it’s a speculative investment, for the average dentist, 5% to 10% of your portfolio if you’re going to do it? If you don’t even do it at all, you’re fine. You don’t need it. What’s the pushback against that, do you think?

Matt Mulcock:
I think the pushback to what we’re saying in regards to treat it like a speculation, be smart about it, these kinds of things is, and I’ve heard this, this is why I know this is the pushback, is you’re just a traditional advisor that’s stuck in the old ways of investing. You don’t see the future, which is very possible. Maybe we don’t see the future, and all of our clients should be 100% crypto.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, spoiler alert. We don’t.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, exactly. But somehow the crypto, people that treat it like a religion are very much, “I see the future.” They see it, right? They see something that maybe everyone else doesn’t, but I will never change my view on investing, whether it be crypto or tulips or individual stocks. I will stick to the-

Ryan Isaac:
Well, do Tesla, GameStop, AMC theaters, those are all in acceptable time-tested asset classes. Those are stocks, but we weren’t saying, “Yeah. Load up 30% of your portfolio in Tesla or AMC or GameStop.”

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. So my approach to all of this, and Ryan, I know you’re the same way, we as a company are this way is we are trying to get our clients to their end goal of wealth, to make work optional in the most predictable and I guess safest way possible with the least amount of uncertainty possible, knowing that there is risk involved, because you have to have risk to get any level of return. You have to. But what we’re trying to do is limit the range of outcomes that you have and get you on the most predictable path there. And so swinging for the fences on things like crypto or individual stocks, that will never change. I will never come off of my approach to the fundamental foundation of an investment portfolio is diversification. That’s it.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. And a high savings rate and sticking with it for a long period of time.

Matt Mulcock:
A high savings rate, focus on your business.

Ryan Isaac:
People are right. You can’t see the future. Yes, that’s true.

Matt Mulcock:
Correct. I cannot.

Ryan Isaac:
You have a boring traditional approach to investing. Yes, that’s true. Guilty as charged. And so the invitation, I guess, is if you also like a boring time-tested, pretty predictable approach to investing, then we’re probably your people. And if you don’t, then we’re probably not your people. That’s fine.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah. That’s okay.

Ryan Isaac:
You don’t have to be everyone’s people.

Matt Mulcock:
And by the way, the message of this is not crypto should not be a part of your life or portfolio. We’re not saying that. We’re just saying be thoughtful about it and create some rules around it.

Ryan Isaac:
But we could be legitimately witnessing the beginning of a new asset class, and 10 years from now, if cryptocurrency, if it behaves like gold, then you could say own it like gold. Or if it behaves like a bond, you can say own it like a bond. It could be a bond replacement or a bond equivalent. I think that’s fair.

Matt Mulcock:
Last thing that I’ll say to that point, Ryan, is I think we are witnessing a seismic shift in the way we do certain things in the world via blockchain, right? I think blockchain is a life-changing technology, and crypto along with that could very well change, just like the Internet did in the late ’90s, early 2000s to today, life-changing technology. I think we’ll look back in 10, 15, 20 years from now, and we’ll see wow, blockchain and the technology behind these things changed the way we do things. But that is very different than saying we can predict and know individual coins that will coincide with that life-changing shift in society, just like in the 2000s, diapers.com was part of the whole dot-com bubble. The Internet changed the world, but diapers.com completely blew up. It’s not even a company anymore, I don’t think.

Ryan Isaac:
They had a blowout?

Matt Mulcock:
They had a blowout. Dad jokes. Oh, the dad jokes. I love it.

Ryan Isaac:
Diapers.com had a blowout. That’s the best dad joke ever, man. You’re totally right, man. And I think another thing to keep in mind is if a technology or a money system like this becomes a permanently adopted piece of everyday business, companies are paying employees with it, companies are accepting it as payment transactions, it’s safer, has regulation, in exchange for that kind of safety, transparency and consistency and predictability comes lower returns. You exchange safety for returns. That’s the trade-off, risk and return. So if it becomes a widely adopted payment system, it doesn’t go up a 1,000% in a day anymore, and it doesn’t drop 600% in a day either. It becomes probably a pretty boring investment at that time. So the nature of it, if it sticks around and becomes widely adopted, that it’s entire nature changes as well. So who knows? Did we cover it all? Did we give it fair treatment?

Matt Mulcock:
I think we were fair. I think we were fair. Let us know if we weren’t fair.

Ryan Isaac:
I just want to answer people’s questions. You know how we think. So I just want to answer people’s questions. And so if you’re listening, if you’re a client, or you’re just trying to get some financial advice, hopefully this answered your question.

Matt Mulcock:
Hey, if you want to talk to us individually and tell us how wrong we are or that we’re idiots, great. Set up a consultation, and I will happily get on a consultation and let you tell me I’m an idiot. Honestly, I’m fine with that. Totally fine with that.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s fine. Just put in the notes, “I just want to yell at someone,” and we’ll get all those on Matt’s calendar.

Matt Mulcock:
Totally fine. I love that.

Ryan Isaac:
He’s got tons of time for that.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, totally.

Ryan Isaac:
He’s up for the challenge. Anyway, thanks. If you have more questions, if we missed anything, left anything out, go to the Dentist Advisors Facebook group and just post your thoughts and your comments in there. Hopefully, we gave this fair treatment. Clearly, we have an opinion on what savvy dentists should be doing with priority of money and investments in order to protect their investment and the career that they’re in. But if we missed anything, let us know. I tried to play Devil’s advocate. I think I tried to do that.

Matt Mulcock:
We’re open to being wrong.

Ryan Isaac:
We’re open to being wrong. That’s fair. Thanks for being with us then. Hopefully, this was helpful to you and thanks for tuning in. If you’re new, extra thanks. Thanks for joining us for the first time. If you’re old, actually, if you’ve been around for a while, thanks for still being here.

Matt Mulcock:
If you’re new, you’re old, you’re medium, middle-aged, welcome.

Ryan Isaac:
If your medium. Yeah, if you’ve got questions, though, go to dentistadvisors.com, book a consultation on the website. You can go to the Facebook page that I mentioned, post any question that you want, and we’ll answer it. And of course the website, dentistadvisors.com and the Dentist Money Show has tons of free content that you can go and check out and learn from. So anyway, Matt, happy investing to you.

Matt Mulcock:
You too, Ryan. Thank you so much.

Ryan Isaac:
I tip my hat. Happy investing to you. We’ll keep on trucking, and thanks, everyone, for being here. We’ll catch you next time. Take care.

 

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